Unschooling Math

Math. Just the word seems to strike terror into the hearts of many homeschool moms, or even parents just trying to help out their child with homework. While there are certainly some exceptions, this subject above others, seems both elevated for its importance, and feared for its perplexing content. If this is you, take a deep breath and let's consider an unschooling approach to math. 

Why are we so afraid of math? My belief is that it is largely because of how it is taught- both at too early of an age, and too disconnected from its practical uses. 

In his book How Children Fail , John Holt examines how his students learn numeracy. 

“A child who has really learned something can use it, and does use it. It is connected with reality in his mind, therefore, he can make other connections between it and reality when the chance comes. A piece of unreal learning has no hooks on it; it can’t be attached to anything, it is of no use to the learner.” (How Children Fail, pg 169)

and

 “ We make a serious mistake in asking children to perform symbolically operations which they could not perform concretely. A child should be able to find out which has the most whites (blocks), a group of 37 or a group of 28, and how many more it has, before he is asked to do a problem like 37-28 =?, and he should be able to do this latter kind of problem easily before he is given a rule for doing it. So with all the operations of arithmetic. Numerical arithmetic should look to children like a simpler and faster way of doing things that they know how to do already, not a set of mysterious recipes for getting right answers to meaningless questions.” (How Children Fail, pg 171)

This is to say, John Holt is arguing that a child should not learn to solve a math problem on paper (the way we often think of doing math), until they fully understand what it is they are doing in an equivalent real life scenario if we want the learning to be real learning. Trying to teach formulas and symbols before a child has developed the concrete knowledge makes math appear mysterious and confusing.  

Most of us learned math as its own subject, mostly disconnected from any real world use. But let's not forget what math really is.  It is part of God’s creation! Math is the way we measure and make numerical sense of the world around us. This makes it one of the easiest subjects to unschool, as math is simply a tool we use to help us find answers. It feels easy when our children are little. Let’s count your fingers and toes, then the cars on the train. If their family of 6 joins our family of 5 for dinner, how many plates do we need? Then it will progress as they grow. If we made 20 rolls, how many can each person have? How much more money do you need to buy ____? How many more weeks of allowance will it take you to save up for this? How do I make 1 ½  of a recipe? As the questions asked become more and more complicated, so does the math used to answer these questions. Involving our children in life situations where numbers are used and calculated gives our children a strong foundation in numeracy that will support their future use and learning of math. 

Another unschooling benefit? Math is a tool, not a hated subject. While my oldest hated math when we were doing a traditional school curriculum schedule at home, she is slowly regaining her appreciation for math, and even has asked me to make up problems for her to solve for fun. She was curious ‘what algebra was’, and so asked me to show and teach her some basic algebra problems, and enjoyed herself! Both my other girls will ask me to make up problems for them to solve or write out a page of questions even. As a lot of our math we do is verbal, sometimes I’ve realized they don’t know what it looks like written down. I’ve seen this several times with my youngest especially who has been unschooled from the start, and had to show her what the + or - signs are, or even place value. 

So what about higher level math? 

While my oldest is only 11, other unschoolers report that they’re children are not held back because of math. As unschoolers are in situations where math is needed, they can learn to do more advanced math to help them do what they are aiming to do. Some examples I have read about include learning geometry to help with building projects, or learning advanced calculations for coding computers. Other parents of unschoolers report their children taking more formal studies to meet requirements for college, studying for SATs, or even wanting to ‘catch up with peers’ if their student chose to enrol in a local high school at a later point. While what high math is needed or looks like might depend on the family/child goals, the point is that they can still be successful in higher level math. 

So many people who might be intrigued by the concepts of unschooling seem to hesitate when it comes to this subject. Many choose to ‘unschool except for math and language arts.’ Somehow this seems backwards to me, as both math and language arts are used every day in practical ways that lend naturally to learning, while important history might need to be purposefully brought up. So I came up with a list of easy everyday places to do math with your kids. 

Here are some ways to bring math into your everyday lives and conversations:

• Bake together

• Games, games, and more games. Teach them to add up their scores, calculated probability or talk strategy for the most points

• Talk about speed, distance, and time as you travel

• Container size versus price when grocery shopping 

• Sewing

• Sports statistics

• Does your family do allowance? Help them add up their money. Have them tell you what their change should be as they buy something. 

• House projects. Build something together. How do you calculate how much wood to buy (hello geometry)? Or paint when painting a room? 

• Ask your family members what they do in their mind to solve a mental math problem. For example, how do you add up 28+33? Do you add 8 and 3, 20 and 30, and add the two totals together. Or maybe you add 3 to 28, then add 30. This is a common discussion in our family surrounding different types of math problems. 

• Developmentally appropriate word problems. I stress the word development, not age, because I know that my children develop differently, and their brains each have different strengths. While my oldest two are about 2 years apart, the younger can often get to the solution for the questions I ask my older faster than my oldest can.  My kids enjoy when I ask them to solve problems for fun, and it’s fun for them because I don’t ask questions that are too easy OR too hard. 

• Countdown the days to an anticipated event 

• Lemonade stand-but have your kids pay for their own supplies and calculate the cost to make each cup of lemonade, then both their gross and net profits. Then they need to divide the profit between them. 

• There are some fun books that include math in them. My kids particularly have enjoyed the Sir Cumference series. 

I hope these thoughts can encourage you to enjoy the numerical aspects of your everyday lives so you can embrace them with your family and find peace in your own unschooling journey.  And I’d love to hear your ideas!  What does math look like in unschooling for you?